Wooded Landscape with Cows beside a Pool, Figures and Cottage c. 1775 - 1780

Curator: This is Thomas Gainsborough's, Wooded Landscape with Cows beside a Pool, Figures and Cottage, now held at the Tate. Editor: It has a quiet, almost dreamlike quality to it, doesn’t it? The composition, the limited palette – it all contributes to a very peaceful mood. Curator: Indeed. Gainsborough, known for his portraits, also often explored landscape, engaging with the rural economy through images of laborers and livestock. This drawing offers insight into his process, using white chalk on brown paper. Editor: The texture of the chalk really brings out the roughness of the bark and the softness of the foliage. And how he uses the brown paper as a mid-tone! Curator: Precisely. Gainsborough blurs lines between observation and artifice, depicting an ideal of rural life and labor that arguably wasn't the reality for many. Editor: It's a lovely example of how close attention to formal elements can conjure an emotional response, despite, or perhaps because of, its social context. Curator: Absolutely, this drawing provides rich material for understanding both Gainsborough’s artistic skill and the era's complex view of the pastoral.